The invention relates to a safety device at the run-in point of a circulating handrail of an escalator, a moving walkway, or a like moving passage, into a stationary wall.
In the region of the run-in point of the circulating handrail, escalators and moving walkways have a safety device that has shown that persons riding on an escalator, particularly children, hold the handrail until their hand reaches the run-in point of the handrail into the stationary wall. In such a case it can occur that the fingers are pulled into the gap located between the surface of the handrail and the run-in opening in the wall. Without certain safety measures, therefore, the danger exists of serious injuries.
To avoid such injuries, in DE-PS 2,054,640 a safety device is proposed which uses a plurality of plates pivotably disposed at the run-in points and structured in the manner of flaps. If the handrail is also still held by a person in the region of the run-in point, the touching of the plates by the fingers leads to their pivoting, by means of which the contact of a safety switch for shutting down the escalator is activated. To prevent mischievous spurious release of the safety device by means of an undesired activation of the plates, it is further provided in the known safety device to use respectively two pivotable plates disposed one behind the other with small spacing. In this instance the spacing between the handrail and the inside edge of the first plate is dimensioned to be so large that the fingers can extend into this gap without injury. Not until one of the two rear plates is touched is the common safety switch activated, and at the same time, the still-closed first plate is unlocked. This known safety device meets high requirements with respect to safety and protection against spurious releases; however, it is expensively composed of a number of parts. To transmit the pivoting movement of the plates onto the contact of the safety switch, activation means provided with a run-on edge are required whose adjustment must be undertaken exactly with respect to all of the plates, on the one hand, and with respect to the contact of the safety switch, on the other hand, in order to assure the desired function. Even slight deviations from the provided settings can lead to the front plate being unlocked too late, because of which injuries can occur.